"The publishers who make these bloated AAA BLOCKBUSTER games that get
booted down our throats at every fake awards show argue that they need
to charge a premium price to keep delivering a premium product. But who
says we need a "premium product", whatever that is? Did we even ask for
that? Is that what we want from games? Massive marketing spend and
homogenisation?

'But these giant companies would have to close down. People will lose
their jobs!' And yes, that's horrible. No one ever wants to see people
lose their jobs. But if these companies can only stay in existence by
charging their customers extortionate prices for bland, safe product,
should they even be there in the first place?"

I found the article very thought-provoking, especially in the light of recent financial flops in the MMOsphere and the current feeling by many questioning whether the 'AAA model' may be harming the genre more than it contributes. The issue of budget-bloat demanding 'safe' derivative gameplay over depth and innovation and hype being peddled over substance is not something restricted to MMOs-only, and is a worrying trend in games as a whole.

2 comments:

I think that issue will solve itself rather soon; the genre has simply reached a saturation of the same old MMO blockbusters. once they're not as profitable anymore, the market will adapt, probably with more variety and smaller projects.

what I don't quite follow is the "extortionate prices" - what prices are we talking about? none of the MMOs I've played were particularly expensive compared to other games or systems, considering the net time of gameplay they yielded.